The present invention relates to a point of presence provided with data collecting means arranged for collecting predetermined data and having a first output for outputting the predetermined data at a first transmission rate, the point of presence having forwarding means with a forwarding means output for outputting data to a dedicated telecommunication network at a second transmission rate differing from the first transmission rate.
Such a point of presence, that may be a switching centre, is widely used in the field of telecommunications with centralised support tools and a centralised operation and maintenance organisation.
Sometimes points of presence are located a long distance away from a local centre where-data, like maintenance data, operational data and billing data, from these points of presence are to be collected and processed.
Such points of presence are provided with remote digital switches and/or digital multiplexers for collecting and terminating {(inter)national} telephony traffic.
Such switches and multiplexers are arranged to collect for instance maintenance data and to output these maintenance data at many predetermined transmission rates. The predetermination of the transmission rate is depending on the standard transmission speed for a fixed digital channel which is for Europe 64 kbits/s whereas in the United States this transmission rate is 56 kbits/s.
To transmit these maintenance data to the local centre where these maintenance data are processed, these maintenance data could, e.g., be led to an (inter)national private leased circuit (I/NPLC) through a router to guarantee safety of transmission. At the location where the maintenance data is to be processed a further router could be connected to such an (inter)national private leased circuit.
However, installing such routers and using a permanent connection through such an (inter)national Private Leased Circuit (I/NPLC) is rather expensive.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a point of presence which allows to transmit such data to the location where the maintenance data needs to be processed in a relatively simple and cheap way.
To that end, the present invention provides a point of presence as defined above which point of presence is provided with feedback means having a feedback input and a feedback output, the feedback means being arranged to receive the predetermined data at the first transmission rate from the data collecting means, a forwarding means being connected to the feedback output for receiving the predetermined data and forwarding these predetermined data to the dedicated telecommunication network at the second transmission rate.
The invention is based on the insight that, for international as well as national telecommunication, there is already provided a secure and rather cheap dedicated telecommunication network to which the points of presence are connected with. However, this dedicated telecommunication network is operating at another transmission rate which differs from the transmission rate of the data collecting means. Still, it is possible to transmit the data collected by the data collecting means and output them to the dedicated telecommunication network by using, essentially, means already provided for within the point of presence itself. The point of presence itself already comprises forwarding means to forward data to the dedicated telecommunication network at the prescribed second transmission rate. In order to allow said data collected by said data collecting means to be transmitted through this dedicated telecommunication network too, feedback means are provided to feed back the output of the data collecting means to these forwarding means which, then, will automatically forward these data from the data collecting means at the correct transmission rate to the dedicated telecommunication network.